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CEOs In The News is a weekly intelligence briefing for senior leaders, boards, and those shaping the future of business. Each edition curates the most important executive moves, corporate shifts, and leadership trends — with clear insights on why they matter.

Our mission is simple: deliver clarity, signal, and strategic perspective in minutes — so you start the week one step ahead of the boardroom narrative.

This week, we examine the unprecedented surge in CEO turnover that defined 2025 and continues to reshape the corporate landscape in early 2026. A record 234 global CEOs stepped down last year, representing a stunning 16% year-over-year increase and signaling a new era of leadership volatility. The trend is not isolated to struggling firms; even top-performing companies are aggressively replacing their leaders, with succession rates among the top three quartiles of S&P 500 performers jumping 71% year over year.

This "Great Reshuffle" is driven by a confluence of forces: intense pressure from activist investors (who launched 141 campaigns in 2025, up 23% from the prior year), board impatience with lagging AI adoption strategies, and a strategic pivot toward leaders with deep operational expertise to navigate economic uncertainty. The data reveals that while insiders still dominate new appointments, the share of external hires in the S&P 500 nearly doubled from 18% in 2024 to 33% in 2025, the highest level in eight years.

Key leadership changes at giants like Walmart, Target, and Disney underscore the magnitude of this shift, impacting a combined market value of over $2.2 trillion. As we explore in the sections that follow, the modern CEO role is being fundamentally redefined, with shorter tenures, younger appointees, and an overwhelming preference for first-time leaders who bring fresh perspectives unburdened by legacy thinking.

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The scale of CEO turnover in 2025 is best understood through the data. According to the Russell Reynolds Associates Global CEO Turnover Index, 234 CEOs departed their roles across major global indices last year, shattering the previous record set in 2024. This figure stands 21% above the eight-year average of approximately 189 departures per year, confirming that the acceleration is not a one-year anomaly but a structural shift in how boards approach executive leadership.

Within the S&P 500 specifically, 59 CEO departures were recorded in 2025, one more than the prior year's already elevated count of 58. The Conference Board projects the annual S&P 500 succession rate rose to 13% as of October 2025, up from 10% in 2024. Meanwhile, the broader Russell 3000 saw CEO succession announcements hold steady at 11%.

The Challenger, Gray & Christmas outplacement firm reported an even more dramatic picture when accounting for companies of all sizes: 1,586 CEOs departed in 2025, a record across all sectors. Notably, 15% of new CEOs appointed in the first six months of 2025 were named on an interim basis, compared to just 9% in the same period of 2024, suggesting that many boards are making leadership changes before having a permanent successor identified.

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One of the most consequential trends in the current leadership landscape is the steady erosion of CEO tenure. According to Spencer Stuart's 2025 S&P 1500 CEO Transitions report, the average tenure of departing CEOs fell to 8.5 years in 2025, down from 9.2 years in 2024 and the lowest level since 2019. This represents a sharp decline from the peak of 10.3 years recorded in 2021, when pandemic-era stability kept many leaders in place longer than usual.

The Russell Reynolds data paints an even more aggressive picture at the global level, where average outgoing CEO tenure declined to just 7.1 years in 2025, down from 7.4 years in 2024 and well below the highs of 8.3 years seen in 2021 and 2023. Perhaps most striking is the surge in very short tenures: CEOs departing within 30 to 36 months of appointment increased by 79% year-over-year, and 11 CEOs exited within their first year in 2025, matching the record set in 2018.

Within the S&P 1500, 37% of departing CEOs left within their first five years, and another 37% departed by their tenth year. In the S&P 500, the figure is even more stark: 45% of CEOs left by the five-year mark. Technology and financial services CEOs bucked the trend somewhat, with average tenures at departure of 11.3 and 10.3 years respectively, reflecting the longer strategic cycles in those sectors.

The implications are profound. The traditional belief in "peak CEO effectiveness" occurring between years four and seven is increasingly misaligned with board behavior. Russell Reynolds notes that boards are now making definitive judgments about CEO performance within the first two to three years, and recommends that succession planning begin three to five years in advance rather than the typical 12 to 18 months.

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The question of whether to promote from within or recruit externally has always been central to CEO succession planning. In 2025, the data reveals a notable shift in this calculus, particularly among the largest companies.

According to The Conference Board, 67% of S&P 500 successions in 2025 were internal promotions, a significant drop from the 82% recorded in 2024. Correspondingly, external hires nearly doubled from 18% to 33%, the highest level in eight years. This marks the first time in eight years that internal promotion rates fell below 70% in the S&P 500, signaling a growing willingness among blue-chip boards to look outside their organizations for transformative leadership.

The picture is somewhat different across the broader S&P 1500, where Spencer Stuart reports that 60% of new CEOs were promoted from inside, with external hires accounting for 40% of appointments, down slightly from the historically high 43% in 2024. The divergence between the S&P 500 and broader indices is instructive: larger companies, facing greater scrutiny from activists and institutional investors, appear more willing to break with tradition and seek outside talent.

Company size plays a significant role in this dynamic. Among small-cap companies, fully 50% hired outsiders, compared to 41% of mid-caps and approximately 25% of large-caps. Sector differences are equally pronounced: financial services, consumer, and industrial companies maintained higher internal appointment rates, while healthcare companies were far more likely to look outside for their next CEO.

The pathway to the CEO suite is evolving in revealing ways. Spencer Stuart's analysis of 168 new S&P 1500 CEOs appointed in 2025, the most since 2010, shows that the COO or President role has become the dominant launching pad, accounting for 48% of all appointments, up from 40% in 2024.

Divisional CEOs represented the second-largest cohort at 30%, just shy of 2024's historic high of 35%. The CFO pathway, by contrast, contracted sharply from 16% in 2024 to just 9% in 2025, suggesting that boards are increasingly prioritizing operational and commercial experience over financial stewardship in their next leader.

The data also reveals that an overwhelming 84% of incoming S&P 1500 CEOs were first-time chief executives, a figure that rises to 90% in the industrial and financial services sectors. Only about 25% of new healthcare and technology CEOs had prior public company CEO experience. This preference for first-time leaders reflects a broader conviction among boards that fresh perspectives and unburdened leadership styles are better suited to navigating the current environment of rapid technological change and geopolitical uncertainty.

In the technology sector specifically, 54% of new CEOs were divisional CEOs, and 15% of new TMT (technology, media, and telecommunications) CEOs were already serving on the company's board when tapped for the top role.

Perhaps the most counterintuitive finding in the 2025 succession data is that strong corporate performance no longer insulates a CEO from replacement. According to The Conference Board and Egon Zehnder, CEO successions at firms in the top three performance quartiles (measured by total shareholder return) jumped from 7% in 2024 to 12% in 2025, a staggering 71% increase.

Meanwhile, the succession rate among bottom-quartile performers actually declined modestly, from 16% to 14%. The gap between top and bottom performers has narrowed dramatically, suggesting that boards are no longer waiting for a crisis to make leadership changes. Instead, many of the 2025 transitions reflected "strategic realignment and long-term succession planning rather than immediate performance triggers," as The Conference Board noted.

This finding aligns with the broader narrative of boards using CEO change as a lever for strategic reset. With activist investors launching 141 campaigns in 2025, up 23% from the prior year according to Barclays research, even well-performing companies face pressure to demonstrate that their leadership is positioned for the next phase of growth, particularly around AI adoption and digital transformation.

Against the backdrop of record turnover and a stated commitment to diversity across corporate America, one of the most troubling trends in 2025 is the sharp decline in women CEO appointments. According to Spencer Stuart, only 9% of newly appointed S&P 1500 CEOs in 2025 were women, a dramatic drop from 15% in 2024 and a reversal of the steady gains made between 2020 and 2024.

The decline was particularly acute in the industrial sector, where women represented just 5% of new CEO appointments, down from 22% in 2024. Healthcare was the lone bright spot, with 19% of new CEOs being women. The Conference Board data for the S&P 500 shows that the total number of women CEOs held steady at 48, while in the Russell 3000, women represent 7.7% of CEOs, barely changed from 7.6% in 2024.

This stagnation is occurring simultaneously with the surge in first-time CEO appointments, which reached 84% in 2025. The juxtaposition raises important questions about the pipeline: if boards are overwhelmingly choosing first-time leaders, the composition of the COO and divisional CEO ranks, the primary feeder roles for the top job, becomes critical. The data suggests that the executive pipeline below the CEO level may not yet reflect the diversity aspirations that many companies have publicly articulated.

The past week brought several significant executive transitions across the Fortune 500 and beyond. In the technology sector, Adobe (No. 201 on the Fortune 500) announced that CEO Shantanu Narayen plans to step down after an extraordinary 18-year tenure during which the stock rose 540%. The announcement, made on March 12, sent Adobe shares tumbling approximately 8% despite record first-quarter earnings, as Bloomberg reported "deep skepticism about the company's ability to thrive in the AI era." The board has initiated a search for his successor, though no timeline has been set.

At Disney, the long-anticipated CEO transition is set to become official on March 18, when Josh D'Amaro, a 28-year Disney veteran who previously served as Chairman of Disney Experiences, will take the reins from Bob Iger, 75. D'Amaro, 55, oversaw the doubling of Disney's cruise ship fleet and $1.5 billion in theme park investments. Thomas Mazloum has been named the new Chairman of Disney Experiences, and Jill Estorino will serve as the new Disneyland President.

Lululemon continues its high-profile CEO search following Calvin McDonald's departure at the end of January 2026. The process has been complicated by founder Chip Wilson's proxy battle to force the departure of three board directors, and the stock has declined 21.7% year-to-date amid the uncertainty. Wilson has publicly warned potential CEO candidates that governance issues may persist, creating a challenging recruitment environment for the $20 billion athleisure company whose shares have fallen approximately 68% from their late-2023 peak.

In other notable moves, Walmart (No. 1 on the Fortune 500) completed its CEO transition with John Furner taking over from Doug McMillon on February 1, after McMillon's 12-year tenure. Target also installed Michael Fiddelke as its new CEO. Among this week's Fortune 500 Power Moves, Equinix (No. 446) appointed Olivier Leonetti as CFO effective March 16, succeeding the retiring Keith Taylor. Kimberly-Clark (No. 213) brought on Francesco Tinto as Chief Information and Global Business Services Officer, while AGCO (No. 364) named Jena Holtberg-Benge as Chief Digital and Information Officer. Autoliv (No. 407) appointed Monika Grama as CFO and EVP of Finance effective April 1, and GXO (No. 363) named Mark Suchinski as its new CFO.

Meanwhile, Microsoft announced a significant leadership shakeup on March 12, with EVP Rajesh Jha retiring mid-year after 35 years at the company. Jeff Teper has been promoted to EVP leading Microsoft 365 Collaborative Apps and Platforms, while Sumit Chauhan and Kirk Koenigsbauer also received promotions.

The data is unambiguous: the era of the long-tenured, untouchable CEO is over. Boards are moving faster, looking wider, and demanding more from their leaders than at any point in modern corporate history. The record 234 global CEO departures in 2025, the surge in external hires among the S&P 500, and the willingness to replace even top-performing leaders all point to a fundamental recalibration of the CEO role.

For executives, the message is clear: the window to demonstrate strategic vision, particularly around AI and digital transformation, has narrowed considerably. For boards, the challenge is equally acute: with CEO tenures shrinking and the talent pipeline for diverse leadership still underdeveloped, the quality of succession planning has never been more consequential.

CEOs In The News is published weekly for an audience earning $300K to $10MM. It’s intended for educational use to empower executives for the ongoing week. For executive search inquiries, executive branding needs, board advisory services, or newsletter feedback, contact our editorial team. The opinions in this newsletter are not that of its sponsors.

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